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Guest post by: Teresa Bohannon Become an Author

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The last few episodes of the hit TV show Ugly Betty has the rich and glamorous fashionistas of mythical MODE magazine facing the trials and tribulations heaped upon the publishing world by the Recession—exacerbated of course by the wealth of at-your-fingertips free entertainment on the Internet. On last night's episode fashion Diva Wilhelmina Slater was forced to auction off her fabulous furs and other furnishings to help keep the magazine alive. On television it was dramatized, it was over the top, it was funny, it was television.

Unfortunately that same scenario is actually happening across the world as people who had it all are now desperately just trying to hang on to a roof over their heads, keep food on the table, or stave off being forced to come out of their comfortable retirement just to make ends meet. Will Ebay be their savior....or yours? Probably not—at least not without a whole lot of work and a whole lot of dedication—but it is a way to raise quick cash, reach a huge audience with your precious possessions and pay a whole lot less in fees than a traditional auction house will charge you. I know because I used to work for one!

Of course there are also tremendous disadvantages to working from home on Ebay. There are fees, pressures, deceitful people, time consuming tasks such as pre-auction picture taking and preparation, copywriting, off-site promotion, packing supply scavenging, post-auction packing, trips to the post-office, bookkeeping, administration—and that is just if you have a supply of something to sell already available to begin with. Wine and Roses, no way! Easier and more profitable than running a garage sale? Yes. Easier than letting a “I Sold It On Ebay Shop” or consignment shop, or traditional auction house handle everything? No. Worth the extra time and trouble? Probably absolutely, especially if you find that you enjoy working from home and selling on Ebay and decide you want to make a business out of it.

Are you one of those people that could actually make a go of selling on Ebay as a Work at Home, Self-Employed, Dream Job? That depends almost entirely on you. Successful entrepreneurs are a unique group of people. They have the dedication and commitment to see a project through, no matter what it takes. Successful Ebay entrepreneurs are even more so, they must have the dedication and commitment to begin from scratch and do it all, which can mean everything from working 18 hour days to forcing yourself to wear a dozen different hats, to going completely against your nature and becoming an extrovert, to foregoing pride and dignity and becoming a professional scavenger. If you don't have what it takes, you can still make quick cash on Ebay selling off your immediate possessions, but when trying to build a business selling there you will be at a distinct disadvantage.

You read about it all of the time. A little old lady without any means buys a digital camera, a computer, and becomes a millionaire on Ebay almost overnight. Winning the lottery should be this easy! The reality is—most of these stories are exactly that: just stories. Usually they are written and promoted and gain a life of their own as part of an affiliate marketing campaign for some product or book that promises to help you get rich on Ebay. Untruths like these tempt people into jumping into selling on Ebay with both feet when they would be much wiser and much safer to wade in one toe at a time.

Ebay was originally designed for buying and selling collectibles and selling off and acquiring a few formerly prized possessions, and that is where it comes in handy for the average person. It is a great, low-investment—both time and money wise—way to make some quick cash; but with building any business, you need to have available money, time and the desire to make it work. One of the biggest secrets about—and disadvantages of—working from home on Ebay is that you can very easily lose time and money if you are not careful.

Lose money on Ebay, you never hear about that! You are right. There are few articles on how I went bust on Ebay. There should be more. The fact is that you can easily lose money on Ebay if you are not careful. Let's start with fees. When you list something for sale on Ebay you have to pay a listing fee. Then there are other upgrades as well. Gallery is now free however; it used to be an added charge. You listing fee depends on how much your starting price is. Then there is the final value fee. This is a percentage Ebay charges you when you sell your item. If your item did not sell, then you can relist it once for free, then you have to pay. This starts to add up after a while. Do you use PayPal, this can add expenses too. How about an Ebay store? This has a monthly fee associated with it. Shipping the item may cost you more than you think. In addition to the actual fee for shipping, the cost of the packing materials and the cost of gas (if you take it to the shipper) can add up as well. Then there is the cost of your inventory. If you are not careful you can lose money quickly. These costs can sneak up on you. Losing money from poor bookkeeping is one of the ugly truths about working from home on Ebay.

Another problem is locating products to sell on Ebay and over extending your pocketbook by over-enthusiastically acquiring merchandise for resale. You have to be careful when researching wholesalers online. Many will say that they are Ebay certified. The truth is Ebay does not certify wholesalers. Also be careful of drop ship companies—because the truth of the matter is, if you collect the money you are the one responsible for seeing that the customer receives what they pay for...and putting that all important detail into someone else's hands can be a sure fire recipe for disaster! There are dozens of people out there that will offer you a turnkey business for a yearly fee, the problem is you really do not have any control over the inventory, and in order to succeed at this sort of business and compete with all of the other “duplicate” businesses out there you are going to have to spend lots of time promoting your website. In most cases this is going to mean attaching your name and reputation to your site, which also means that if the customer is unhappy it is you who are on the hook for their bad experience.

On the whole, you are better off maintaining control by creating or finding your own inventory, if you want to truly be successful on Ebay. You also have to learn how to sell, promote, pack and ship your own items, in order to maintain that degree of control that protects your online and Ebay reputation. There really is no magic solution to get all of this done with a click of a mouse. You must work just as hard at Working at Home on Ebay as you would at any other business.

Making quick cash for the short term on Ebay is easy. Operating a business on Ebay takes time, money and commitment. Many individuals cannot allocate the proper amount of time and energy into an online business when they have other work, family and outside commitments. Before you decide to jump on the work at home wagon, be sure you understand what you are getting into. Do your research before you make a decision you will regret, and start slowly with the possessions, collectibles or even inventory that you already have conveniently at hand.

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Also see my article on 10 Steps To Selling on Ebay.

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It is not wealth one asks for, but just enough to preserve one’s dignity, to work unhampered, to be generous, frank and independent.
– W. Somerset Maugham (1874 ? 1965) Of Human Bondage, 1915

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